Post by account_disabled on Mar 6, 2024 3:41:53 GMT
Yesterday I was at the first session of the Tech Talks conference cycle organized by the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), for which they brought Jessica Colaço ( twitter ), distinguished as TED Global 2009 and one of the most influential young women in Kenya . Colaço is a fundamental figure in the region's mobile technology landscape. This technology is one of the most quickly adopted from an international and comparative point of view, especially in certain areas of Africa. The work of people like Colaço, who in his case works at Strathmore Research and Consultancy Center ( SRCC ) in Kenya, will surely have something to do with it. From there it connects thousands of young Africans with software developers from global companies in the ICT sector such as Google or Facebook. social apps It is true that technology is not an element that by itself can cause social change, but it is possible that it can be a facilitating element.
Colaço unites mobile technology and social change because there are 370 mobile terminals on this continent, a number that continues to grow. And Africa is the world region with the highest annual growth rate in mobile telephony, although the presence of the Internet is still very poor. According to Colaço, a market is increasingly taking shape where information and services such as SMS are gaining importance. In fact, the speaker Industry Email List began her collaboration with Google as a result of a project she developed to alleviate the serious lack of information that Google Maps suffered in rural areas of East Africa within the framework of her university studies (which she completed in 2007 and which a sample of his youth). Her proposal, in an interesting crowdsourcing exercise, allowed mobile phone users to generate maps and upload them to Google Maps. But Colaço proposed wide-ranging innovations: from an innovative M-Pesa payment system , oral SMS systems through txtEagle , and other initiatives such as Tangaza, M-Kulima, Waññigame, M-Guide for tourism, Fish Detector.
M-pesa is an initiative of Vodafone and a local partner (Safaricom from Kenya), who developed a mobile payment system that transferred 40 million euros in just one month, mostly in small payments . The M-Pesa system allows you to transfer money with your mobile phone to another account; If the recipient does not have an M-Pesa account, they receive a message on their mobile phone inviting them to visit an agent in the area to collect the money. According to Nick Hughes , designer of the M-Pesa system, it works as follows: “Our target audience is someone who doesn't have a bank account but wants to move money quickly. We have a fantastic distribution network that is, if possible, larger than that of any bank.” It is not surprising, then, that Colaço presents a speech focused on what mobile technology can contribute to Africa. For this reason, she defines herself as “an evangelist of mobile technology.” In this direction, Ella Colaço aspires to create a culture of innovation involving students, entrepreneurs and the creation of research centers.
Colaço unites mobile technology and social change because there are 370 mobile terminals on this continent, a number that continues to grow. And Africa is the world region with the highest annual growth rate in mobile telephony, although the presence of the Internet is still very poor. According to Colaço, a market is increasingly taking shape where information and services such as SMS are gaining importance. In fact, the speaker Industry Email List began her collaboration with Google as a result of a project she developed to alleviate the serious lack of information that Google Maps suffered in rural areas of East Africa within the framework of her university studies (which she completed in 2007 and which a sample of his youth). Her proposal, in an interesting crowdsourcing exercise, allowed mobile phone users to generate maps and upload them to Google Maps. But Colaço proposed wide-ranging innovations: from an innovative M-Pesa payment system , oral SMS systems through txtEagle , and other initiatives such as Tangaza, M-Kulima, Waññigame, M-Guide for tourism, Fish Detector.
M-pesa is an initiative of Vodafone and a local partner (Safaricom from Kenya), who developed a mobile payment system that transferred 40 million euros in just one month, mostly in small payments . The M-Pesa system allows you to transfer money with your mobile phone to another account; If the recipient does not have an M-Pesa account, they receive a message on their mobile phone inviting them to visit an agent in the area to collect the money. According to Nick Hughes , designer of the M-Pesa system, it works as follows: “Our target audience is someone who doesn't have a bank account but wants to move money quickly. We have a fantastic distribution network that is, if possible, larger than that of any bank.” It is not surprising, then, that Colaço presents a speech focused on what mobile technology can contribute to Africa. For this reason, she defines herself as “an evangelist of mobile technology.” In this direction, Ella Colaço aspires to create a culture of innovation involving students, entrepreneurs and the creation of research centers.